


in the light of breaking day

by KatRoma



Series: of pinwheels and paper daffodils [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Dysfunctional Family, Female Uchiha Sasuke, Gen, POV Multiple, Terminal Illnesses, Uchiha Sasuke-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3266039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatRoma/pseuds/KatRoma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not that Sasuke hates anyone, really. It's just that she loves all the wrong people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a one shot, but there's this essay that's killing me. Both this, and "trapped in the amber of this moment" are put on hold until Tuesday. Seriously, this thing is due Tuesday and I haven't even started it. I suck at life. How am I graduating early.
> 
> Sorry. Anyway. The first part (chapter?) is mostly training. It wasn't supposed to be. I don't really know what happened, but it did.

When Obito collaborated with Itachi to massacre their family, he’d agreed to keep his little cousin alive, but he hadn’t intended for her to come along.

“I didn’t mean to,” Itachi says after the girl falls asleep, carried on his back. Stick-like arms protrude from baggy sleeves and pant legs, and her hair is just as messy as the real Madara’s had been. “She blinded herself resisting the Tsukuyomi with a Sharingan she developed five minutes earlier. Konoha never would’ve let her continue at the Academy. What life would she have there?”

She makes a soft sound in her sleep, fingers loosely bunching in the fabric of Itachi’s shirt. “Where you’re going is filled with S-class, international criminals,” Obito says, “and predominantly made of men. She’s seven.”

Lowering his gaze, Itachi says, “I know. I saw no other option. She’s my sister.”

Though the real Madara had siblings, Obito never had the privilege. The closest he had was a girl he loved, and the boy who killed her. Sometimes he does wonder if he’d just been fast enough to save Rin, and the relationship might be different, but he thinks he understands. “Be careful, Itachi,”  he says. “Train her and make her useful if you want her to be safe.”

Nagato and Konan might be soft enough to leave the girl alone, but the same can’t be said for the rest. “I understand,” Itachi says, and Obito thinks his cousin still has a lot to learn.

 

 

With Sasuke’s undeveloped chakra, maintaining her Sharingan long enough to see more than an hour at most is difficult. She runs her hands along the walls to see, but walks into door frames and furniture, and as Itachi’s still in a period of close watch, he becomes his sister’s eyes for now.

Since the time she could walk, her hand’s always found its way into his so he could lead her along, half a step ahead. Itachi should’ve known it wouldn’t change any time soon. As guilty as he feels for bringing her along, sometimes he looks at her, eyes darker than his and so light she’s soundless against the wooden floors, and still can’t help but think of how fortunate he is. Everything went so wrong; she wasn’t meant to not believe him, she wasn’t meant to go blind, and she was meant to come. Regardless, here she is anyway, bitten nails digging into the sides of his palm and small smile on her face whenever she focuses long enough on his voice for her eyes to find him directly.

In Konoha, she was held to a position of second best, and never quite good enough. He makes certain that here she doesn’t have the same high expectations that drove her to dropped shoulders and wilted smiles. “I can make it from the kitchens to the room all by myself,” she says one night as she crawls under the covers. The blankets are soft, though nothing like home, and Itachi isn’t sure if he misses his parents or Shisui more. “I didn’t even walk into anything.”

She acts as though she misses Konoha far less than Itachi does, but her nightmares say differently. The light in the room is still on, drowning out the moon’s glow that slides between the cracks in the curtain, throwing long shadows against the wall. His is too tall, too thin, and hers non-existent. She might be able to make it to and from the kitchens on her own, but tomorrow she’ll still need to take his hand to reach the bathroom, and help with the toothbrush and toothpaste. This is entirely his fault, and he doesn’t understand how she can act so cheerful.

“That’s very good,” he says, and kisses her forehead. “Get some sleep, Sasuke. You must be tired.”

The hour or so she can use her Sharingan in a day to memorize the layout of the Akatsuki’s hideout is enough to exhaust her, and she tries a little more each day. “Yeah,” she says, hugging his arm, the only place she can reach without feeling around. “Goodnight, nii-san.”

It’s only ten, and he has nothing else to do for the rest of the night. Her blindness means light no longer bothers her, though, and he settles into his own bed to read until he’s tired enough to sleep.

 

 

Sending the Uchiha boy out on missions leaves the little one to navigate alone, and walk into people coming around corners. Konan’s taken a liking to the girl, as has many of others, Nagato’s heard, but they can only help her to a certain degree. Even he has his time without duty to the Akatsuki or his village, and he knows what it’s like to have eyes that hurt, and to witness family die. Little Sasuke is an orphan in a sea of many, and though from a village other than here, there’s no harm in helping a child in need.

Going to her is difficult, so she comes to him, using her Sharingan to find her way. “I can teach you to see without your eyes,” he tells her. “The world is a vast and dangerous place, and you can’t find your path holding your brother’s hand.”

She’s very much like Yahiko, filled with a determination made of something more durable than water, more protective than selfish. “I know,” she says, and smiles, tucking her arms behind her back. “I’ll need to return the favor eventually, right?”

There’s a raw talent in her she doesn’t seem aware of yet, or she never would’ve made it this far. Though young, Nagato believes she can learn what she puts her mind to. “You’re right,” he says. “Now listen closely, because I’m going to teach you how to feel without touch.”

Every shinobi has a sixth sense in feeling chakra, life’s force found in every human, but all living things send off their signals. Drafts break around inanimate objects in abandoned rooms; water ripples where it meets resistance, or where feet brush the surface. Birds’ wings quiver the air, forest creatures send vibrations through the ground, and the world wants to be acknowledged. Every sound, smell, and sensation is just as important as sight, and all little Sasuke needs to do is learn how to pay attention.

She listens with an focus that’s admirable, and promises to give him updates on her progress. “Thank you, Pein-sama,” she says with all the respect of a young girl raised in a formal household. “I won’t fail.”

Regardless of what Uchiha Itachi must see in his dream, he didn’t break his sister, but transform her, and Nagato has no doubt she’ll succeed.

 

 

As much as Deidara doesn’t like Itachi, it’s hard not to like his sister. In the end, it’s just that she’s great, because there aren’t many blind little girls who can use chakra to run through the treetops of forest fast enough to look as though they’re flying. She has better aim than most kids her age, and listens so attentively to his stories about his different masterpieces that he knows she’s going places. Unlike her brother, she’s going to understand destruction as well as she does creation.

He can’t show her most of his techniques, but he can help her out with taijutsu. “Your brother’s so focused speed and dodging,” he says as she looks up at him with big red and black eyes, “but that’s because he’s too worried to teach you offense. Well, I think offense is what’s going to save your life, kid, so I’m going to teach you how to kill people. Got it?”

They’re in the training room at Ame headquarters, both in clothes good for training. With its half-padded floor and square shape, it’s perfect for someone who’s going to be knocked around more often than not. She says, “Can I use my Sharingan to help me learn faster?”

The Sharingan seems like cheating, but she’s blind without it, and an advantage is always better than a disadvantage. As a missing-nin, he shouldn’t complain much about doing something the dishonorable way to begin with. “Yeah, go crazy,” he answers, and is rewarded by a smile revealing a missing canine tooth lost just last week.

With her Sharingan, she learns faster than anyone he’s ever seen, and then adapts it into the same agile style her brother has. It’s not mastered or perfected, but it’s the quickest progress he’s seen in a while. Her advantage is also her weakness, though, and eventually, the red fades back to dark grey, and she falls to her back in exhaustion. If the floor weren’t padded, Deidara’s sure that would’ve hurt a lot.

“That was fun,” she says, useless eyes directed unfocused to the ceiling. “Can we do it again next time you’re around, Deidara-san?”

“Of course, Sasuke-chan,” he says. “And by the end of my tutelage, I’ll make sure you can kill man a hundred different ways.”

Her smile’s a smirk, one corner of her mouth turning upwards. For a kid, she’s adorable, but she’s older, she’s going to be a work of art.

 

 

The men may teach Sasuke their style of fighting as much as they want, but she’s still not one of them, and it’s Konan who shows what she needs to know.

“You’re going to fight without your Sharingan,” Konan says, and Sasuke obediently allows her eyes to become sightless once again. Rather than the training room, they’re standing on a riverside outside the village where it’s cloudy but dry, and a good place to learn for someone new to controlling paper with chakra. “Eventually you can incorporate it, but for now, this is going to take too much chakra for you to use it and fight simultaneously. In combining Itachi’s taijutsu with Deidara’s, you’ve created your own style. Now I’m going to teach you to combine that with ninjutsu.”

Sasuke’s still too young to learn Shikigami no Mai, but she can begin with the principles. Several days ago she mastered lacing origami with chakra and bending the paper to her will, though she’s yet to use it to fight. “What am I creating?” she asks.

“Hand fans,” Konan answers. Though not her most comfortable weapons, they’re a good starting point. “When combined with chakra, the paper’s stronger and sharper than metal. Your specialty now is genjutsu, which is good. Understanding this will be easier. Most shinobi, and even most kunoichi, fight by throwing their full force in their attacks. Your objective is to use your opponent’s force against them, and wait until an opening for a single killing blow. Now create your fans.”

It’s still a struggle for Sasuke to allow her chakra to do the work instead of her hands, but after a few minutes, she has two well made war fans in each hand. “The movement’s going to similar to your clan’s style,” Konan continues, creating fans of her own, “but less reliant on strength. You need to move like you’re dancing.”

“What?” Sasuke says even as she falls into the Uchiha style’s starting stance. Konan adjusts her arms and hands. “But no one’s taught me that. I don’t know how.”

“Mirror my movements,” Konan says, coming to stand across from her. “We’ll see how many times I knock you in the water before you learn. Are you ready?”

“I think?”

Though Sasuke’s knocked into the water from the first strike, she doesn’t allow it to deter her, and climbs back to the shore.

 

 

When Sasuke’s nine, she becomes an official Amegakure gennin, and an unofficial member of the Akatsuki. This is also when everyone realizes she hasn’t had formal written lessons since she was seven, and takes it upon themselves to catch her up to her age level.

For Kisame, this means teaching her about Kirigakure. “In Konoha, you have the ANBU,” he says, “but in Kiri, they have the hunter-nin. You’ve already got the shinobi community talking about you as ‘the Harbinger of Ame,’ so I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up in the Bingo Book sooner rather than later. These are the guys you have to worry about.”

In the archives he found pictures, and with her Sharingan activated, she can see them. They’re in the kitchens, sharing a bowl of edamame beans. “Why?” Sasuke says. “Is their object searching out people in the Bingo Book and killing them?”

“Not exactly,” he answers. “Usually they just search out Kiri missing-nin like me to assassinate, then the burn the body on site to immediately destroy evidence. But at unless the shinobi’s a full citizen of an allied country, anyone with a price on their head is free game. It doesn’t help that they’ve lifted the persecution of people with kekkei genkai.”

Sasuke’s hand pauses above the bowl. “Persecution?”

“Oh, yeah, if you were in Kiri at that time, you and your brother both would’ve been dead,” Kisame says, “if your mother was even alive long enough to give birth to you at all. Even I thought that shit was sick. Anyway—”

“Why?”

Her eyes have gone back to grey, and her face white. As much as he doesn’t mind terrifying the innocent on normal occasions, he likes the kid enough that he hadn’t meant to scare her. “Most places are pretty calm about it,” he says, “but people with kekkei genkai lead the front lines in war time. They win battles. Kiri’s got a long history of killing off what they think they can’t control. That’s why there’re so many missing nin. Half the Seven Swordsmen defected.”

“What made you?” she says.

“Got sick of killing under false pretenses,” he says. “Might still follow orders here, but at least they don’t cover the reasons in bullshit. Never let yourself get idealistic, kid. That’s how you end up dead or worse.”

With that, he returns to the lesson.

Sasuke doesn’t reactivate her Sharingan until long after Itachi calls her away.

 

 

With Orochimaru run off, Sasori’s confined to Amegakure for the next few weeks until partnerships are switched around. The Uchiha siblings are around, too, Itachi too sick to do anything, and little Sasuke stubbornly refusing to leave his side, so with no other entertainment, Sasori decided to teach her what she’s been asking of him for the past year. As she’s not of Suna, and too young, he’d never show her real puppet jutsu, but he it wouldn’t hurt to show her how to create chakra strings.

For some time he waits in the training room under the glowing light, but Sasuke doesn’t come. It’s odd, as rather than simply punctual, she’s normally early. His hearing was purposely built to more advanced than a normal human’s, and if something happened to Itachi, the noise of hurried activity would reach him. After ten minutes or so, Sasori feels a trickle of worry, closely followed by apprehension, and leaves to find Konan.

She’s in the dining hall, chopsticks clicking together as she gathers rice to eat in a way he still misses with pangs of jealousy on occasion. When he enters, she looks to him, and says, “Hello, Sasori. Here for another discussion on shapes?”

Though they may disagree on the purpose of their art, there’s no one else in the Akatsuki who understands creation the way she does. It’s not unusual for them to sit and discuss styles. “Later,” he answers, knowing now that his single-day pupil absence can’t be the fault of her brother. The first person she would’ve gotten was Konan. “Have you seen Sasuke anywhere?”

“I thought she was with you.”

“She never came.”

Konan’s mouth twitches, and she releases her paper butterflies into the air. “She doesn’t get confused anymore,” she says, “but I suppose there’s always the possibility.”

Not just Sasuke is gone, they find, but Itachi, too. Sasori assumed, like most of the others, that she’d join one day at the rate she improved, and finds himself sadder than the expected at the realization a scorned Orochimaru likely killed them both.

 

 

Sasuke’s awake for the eye operation she didn’t ask for. She feels every severed nerve, every jolt of pain, all the blood on her face, hyper aware of the cloth in her mouth to keep her from screaming, and the softness of the sheets beneath her back. According to Uncle Madara, Itachi asked for this, but that doesn’t make her want it any more than she would if he hadn’t. If Uncle Madara hadn’t temporarily paralyzed her, she doesn’t know what she would’ve done.

Implanting Itachi’s eyes hurts worse than having her own removed. The Sharingan is made for this, and reattachment happens on its own, but the pain is like nothing she’s ever felt before. Even with the cloth, she doesn’t understand how no one in the hotel can hear her. Tears mingle with the blood on her face, sliding from her cheeks to the pillow, and when all this through, it’s going to look like a murder occurred here.

As quickly as it began, it’s over, though the afterthought of pain remains. She jerks out of the paralysis, sitting up and gasping as Uncle Madara takes her under his arm, holding her there. “You’re going to pass out from the pain soon,” he says, and something soft and wet touches under her eye, sending another shoot of pain through her body, before he starts to clean the blood away. “Itachi told you to go back Konoha—even went far enough to implant the genjutsu in his eyes to screw with your memory. He thought I didn’t know, but hey, I know everything. It’s going to kick in once you wake up. But you don’t _really_ want to go back, do you? Well, don’t worry, I’ll break you out of it when the time’s right.”

She squeezes her eyes—no, _Itachi’s_ eyes—shut, and grips onto Uncle Madara’s shirt, burying her face into his chest. She’s never felt so betrayed in her life; Itachi just made her _kill_ him, told her to go somewhere that isn’t home, and now Madara’s saying she has to do the same. The pain throbs, spreading from her head through her body, and she wants to wake up and find out this is just one of her nightmares. She’ll curl up with Itachi until she remembers he’d never really hurt her, and fall asleep like that, or if she passed out from chakra exhaustion in the middle of the day, it’ll be Konan stroking her hair, calming her down in a way her mother never did.

In Konoha, Shisui told her you can’t feel pain in dreams, but she felt the Tsukuyomi in her sleep enough times that she knows it isn’t true. Even so, she knows this is real, and she’s here in a hotel in the Fire Country with hands still stained with her brother’s blood. The pain’s so severe she can’t even plead for Uncle Madara to change his mind, and bring her back.

“Look, I know how it works there,” he continues, “so I know what they’re going to do to you. You’re going to get stuck in I and T for a while, but without any proof, you’ll get released eventually. Then you’ll get set up with a bunch of babysitters made up of jounin. Get them to like you, get yourself onto a gennin team. Itachi never gave up all the information he had, but you can fill in the blanks once you remember again. They’ll be casual around you if they trust you enough.”

Suddenly, she’s pushed back to the bed, one of his hands on her forehead and the other on her abdomen. Instinctively, she opens her eyes, and the room is hazy and dull. “You’ve got to do this without me telling you,” he says, “but if you remember, Konoha’ll catch you. Itachi’s not the only one who can plant suggestions. See you in a few years, Sasuke-chan.”

When the Sharingan in the slit in his mask shifts to the Mangekyo, she screams through the cloth, and her mind goes dark.

 

 

It’s late on a Tuesday when Deidara bursts back into the Ame hideaway after his week off. “You were right about Sasuke-chan,” he says immediately when he finds Konan alone with the morning paper in the dining hall. “Orochimaru _didn’t_ take her. It was Konoha! And she has Itachi’s eyes!”

For the rest of the members who cared for the girl, Sasuke was something of a little sister or cousin, but it was different for Konan. She’d never had a child, and never planned to, but her affections for Sasuke were how she imagined motherhood felt. When Konan declared, quite adamantly, that Orochimaru was not responsible, it was less out of genuine disbelief, and more because she couldn’t stand the idea of something that terrible happening.

This is decidedly worse.

“Are you sure?” she says. “How do you know?”

“I literally just sort of ran into her,” he answers, shock still in his voice, though it must have several days ago. “It was actually kind of scary. There were three Konoha-nin, and then a bunch of Orochimaru’s guys, and she looks different, but not _that_ different, so I went and killed everyone because I figured I was saving her. Then she just freaked the fuck out, and kept asking who I was even after I told her. Konan, she can _see_. Her eyes are blue instead of grey, and then she did that black flame thing Itachi could do. She had a Konoha symbol on. They must’ve done something to her.”

No, Konoha didn’t do anything, Konan knows. Itachi was so terribly protective, almost to the point of unreasonable in the beginning; if he was dying at a quicker rate than he said, it only makes sense he’d sent his little sister home. The question is, then, how she has his eyes.

Deidara looks to Konan for answers, as she was, after all, the closest person to Sasuke outside of her brother. “Konohagakure is currently the strongest all the hidden villages,” Konan says, thinking the situation through with more logic than she can expect Deidara to do at the moment. “It’s also home to the Kyuubi Jinchuruki. If she didn’t recognize you, she won’t recognize any of us. It’s safer for everyone if we leave her there until we move in for the Jinchuruki.”

The problem with affection is the reckless decisions it can cause. Shinobi are quicker to lose their humanity than kunoichi, but for those not lost completely, slivers of goodness are enough to act as an anchor in the darkness. Who better than a little blind girl just as willing to dispense a hug as to throw a kunai to a grown man’s throat?

She’s gone, but her influence isn’t. Deidara stalks off with his shoulders high, scowling, and Konan tries to imagine what Sasuke looks like now.

 

 

When Sasuke appears in front of Naruto in the doorway of his hotel room, ready to defend from whoever wants to hurt him, she feels time stop around her.

The blue skin and shark-like appearance of the man is familiar enough, but it’s the cloak that has her stunned, patterned black with red clouds like her dream. She relaxes her stance, lets the Sharingan fade, and when she meets his eyes, an expression similar to surprise flits across his face. “So he was right,” he says, grabbing her chin, leaving Naruto forgotten. “These are really Itachi’s. How’s it feel being able to see?”

“Hey, Sasuke,” Naruto says from behind her, “what’s going on, and who is this guy?”

“No idea,” she answers, “but clearly someone who knew my brother. What do you want?”

There’s a name caught in her mouth that she can’t quite get, but she pushes the curiosity away, because Naruto is more important. After Kaito-sensei, Kichiro, and Yuki, she can’t lose anyone else. Rather than answer, though, the man squints at some point beyond her, then grabs her hair and shoulder, spinning her around, and pulling down her shirt. “So Itachi did it to protect you from him,” he says, more to himself, and she catches sight of Naruto’s face, eyebrows drawn in and nose scrunched. Louder, the man says, “I’m here to get both of you. Convenient that you’re in the same place. Some help here, Sasuke-chan?”

She thinks of Kichiro calling her that, arm thrown around her shoulders, and when she reactivates the Sharingan, she has just enough time to twist around, intercepting the man’s attempt to attack Naruto. Then the stray thought comes in her in the man’s voice— _she’s too good to be fighting with a couple of fans, Konan._

Midway through the attack, her Chidori fizzles out and she falls to her hands and knees, dizzy from her mind trying to connect the thought to a situation, and the name to a face. When all of Naruto’s clones disappear, though, she forces herself to her feet again, and throws herself between them as they try to attack each other. If the man’s sword connected, Naruto would be dead worse, but she isn’t sure which one she’s protecting all the same.

Years of experience means the man was able to stop his swing before the odd blade could come down into her back. Naruto, though, doesn’t have that kind of skill, and the useless kunai he so prepared to against a sword with is stabbed into her stomach.

He lets go, horrified, and the man grabs the back of her shirt.

That’s when Jiraiya appears, turning the hallway slick and living, and Sasuke doesn’t feel saved.

  
  


After Obito saves his little cousin from dying at the hands of five kidnappers not intelligent enough to stop and heal her, he reverses the genjutsu on her right there in the clearing. She passes out from the mental and physical strain, having released Amaterasu as an instinctive reaction, and he brings her a safe distance away before setting her down in the grass and waiting for her to wake.

The day is cloudless and quiet save the normal sounds of the forest, and the streamside a good place for a conversation. He’s checked up on her over the years, but this is the first time seeing her close enough to inspect. As expected, she’s grown, and developed a shorter, and slimmer figure than her mother had. Her hair’s not as messy, considerably longer, and her face lost the little baby fat it had. As a child, she resembled his side of the family, which came from her grandfather’s brother, but now she’s all Itachi, just with paler skin.

At midnight, she finally opens her eyes, and with the moon full, it’s nearly bright as day. When she sits up, she winces, hand going to her bandaged side, and breathes out slowly. “I stitched you up to stop the bleeding, but you can get it fixed later,” he says, causing her to jump, and look up. “Miss me?”

She lunges forward without answering, arms circling his neck. “How the hell was I supposed to miss you when I couldn’t remember you?” she says, body shaking. “Don’t send me back. Please don’t send me back.”

Even if he wanted to, he doesn’t know if her mind can handle any more genjutsu to that severity. Animal eyes glow at them through the bushes, catching the moonlight, and he picks her up, knowing they’ve been here too long already. “There’re some facts we’re going to need to go over before we reach Ame,” he tells her, “but I promised I’d come back for you, didn’t I? You’re going home.”

Her smile holds all the sweetness it did when she was a kid, and Obito reminds himself that plans are often susceptible to change. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Akatsuki are glad to have Sasuke back, and no one's more invested in her progress than Obito.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm supposed to be working on the essay due tomorrow, but I randomly got hit by what the final section should be (which is what I was stuck on), so here you go. 
> 
> Also! A thing to be aware of:
> 
> I fucked around a lot with the Rinnegan and Mangekyo Sharingan.

Konan is the first to pull Sasuke in her arms when the girl returns, tired and bloody and seeing through eyes the color of night. “It’s good to have you home,” Konan says, moving back to hold Sasuke at arms’ length, looking her up and down. Even through her exhaustion and pain, her smile’s still genuine. “You’ve grown, Sasuke.”

“I’m sorry I was gone for so long,” she says, hand going to her side. “Orochimaru did something to me. Itachi thought Konoha could protect me as my home village, I guess. Please tell me I didn’t kill Deidara by accident.”

“No, he’s very much alive,” Konan says, and Sasuke breathes in relief. “He and Sasori are gathering information on the choosing of the new Kazekage. How are you here? How did break the genjutsu?”

When she adjusts her hold, tucking Sasuke under one arm, the girl leans on her for support. It’s time they get a hot meal into her, and then find some dry clothes. There has to be an Ame-nin somewhere nearby who can get her a medic. “Orochimaru sent people to try to kidnap me out of a hospital room,” she answers, walking slowly down the hall but not limping. “They injected me with something. I don’t know how, but it broke the genjutsu. This injury’s actually old, it just reopened. I walked here. But look, I can see without the Sharingan!”

Sasuke’s resilience always had been impressive, and if she could stand adjusting to such drastic eyesight changes twice, it’s not hard to imagine she could survive a walk from the Fire Country. “That’s good,” Konan says, brushing hair from Sasuke’s face. “Everyone’s going to be happy to see you.”

“Is there anyone new?”

“No one yet.”

Privately, Konan always hoped Sasuke would defect from Konoha and be the newest recruit. She has the eyes for it, now more than ever, as well as the potential and loyalty. Perhaps the spot is about the filled after all.

After getting Sasuke to the kitchens, Konan locates a spare Ame-nin and tells her to find a medic before sending a butterfly to Nagato. Sasuke’s come home, and regardless of what Itachi thought, they won’t let anyone hurt her here.

 

 

It takes nearly a month for everyone to find out Sasuke’s back, and even Hidan ruffles her hair when he sees her. She and Deidara forgive each other for the misunderstanding; Kisame doesn’t just hug her, but picks her up to do it; Sasori says he still owes her a lesson; Pein reinstates her as an Ame chuunin, and very painfully removes Orochimaru’s seal from her body by doing something with the Rinnegan.

A month after that, Uncle Madara comes to see her on her walk home from another one of Konan’s training sessions, and takes her to an abandoned building not far from the main market area for a private conversation. It’s drafty, filled with mildew and dust, and in the dim, cloudy light coming through the windows, Sasuke realizes something she should’ve weeks ago. Uncle Madara isn’t her uncle, nor is he Madara. He’s someone else entirely.

“I’ve told Pein everything I know from Konoha,” she says, and takes a seat on an empty wooden crate. “Do you want all the information, too, or just what I have on Hatake Kakashi?”

With the mask, it’s impossible to tell what he’s really feeling, but she’d like to think he’s surprised. “Why would I have special interest in a single jounin?” he asks, voice neutral. “This has nothing to do with Konoha, actually. I want to talk to you about something else.”

They can get to that soon. For now, she’s just angry she’s been lied to again, the feeling of it somewhere sharp behind her eyes. “You’re wearing a mask to cover your face even after you told me who you are,” she says, crossing her legs at the knees, “and there’s only one slit for one Sharingan. Your voice doesn’t fit the age you claim to be. Kakashi told me all about a mission in Kusagakure during the war where he lost his best friend Uchiha Obito, who gave him one of his eyes after getting half his body pinned by a rockslide. Hello, cousin. How did you survive?”

There’s a long beat of silence before her _cousin_ says, “Well, this saves me the trouble of explaining things to you, though I’m sure he explained it all wrong. That’s what I’m here to talk to you about.”

“Take off your mask,” she says. “I at least want to see the face of the person who’s been lying to me for years.”

Though one side is considerably paler than the other, and badly scarred, he’s more normal looking than she imagined. His mouth is shaped like hers, and his cheekbones just as high. “Satisfied?” he says, and she jerks her head in a nod. “Good. Now I’m going to tell you the story of how I survived.”

He talks, and she listens, and by the end, she’s somehow agreeing to help him throw the world into a mockery of peace.

 

 

An Iwa missing-nin comes to Amegakure on rumors and whispers, looking to enter the Akatsuki. His hair’s white, his body tall and lean, and she doesn’t think about Kakashi. “They need a tenth member,” Sasuke tells the man when he enters the clearing Konan chose, “but there’s a question about whether or not you’re good enough. You have to beat me if you want to join.”

She knows how she must look, this slip of a thirteen-year-old with hair too soft, and skin too clear of scars, sitting on a tree stump in complete relaxation. “You’re the Harbinger, I take it,” he says, and it’s unquestioning. She nods regardless. “Hm. Thought you’d be older. What’s in it for you?”

“The jounin test in Amegakure,” she answers, shifting her eyes into the Mangekyo Sharingan, “is to kill a designated target on a solo mission. If you fail, then you know too much. Can’t have you running loose. Sorry, but you’re not making it out of this alive.”

When he charges her, katana at the ready, she waits until the last second before forming her paper into fans. Paper might be a dampener for normal electricity, but for lightning based chakra, it’s as good as any metal conductor, and the air crackles when the side of the fan touches the blade. Lightning ripples down it, right into the missing-nin’s arm. He doesn’t drop the katana, but she uses his own momentum to drag him forward while she does the same in the opposite direction, her second sliding up to the hilt, and twisting.

It falls to the ground, the last aftershocks of lightning shooting through the dampness. He jumps, throwing two kunai with explosive tags aimed at her face, but she retaliates by releasing a volley of origami shuriken. A few connect with the kunai, the explosion loud enough to cover the sound of birds. Several real ones fly from tree tops, and her opponent comes back through the smoke, senbon needles at the ready. She flips his katana with her foot, catching it in her hand as one of her fans turns back to paper, and drags the other through the air, deflecting the needles back towards her opponent. In that moment, she sees it, his realization that he’s about to die.

He uses an Iwa camouflage jutsu she copies for later use, but he’s still visible to the Sharingan. Though the wind based attack, something similar to her old teammate’s, is a good effort, it’s weak compared to her clan’s Kanton jutsu. The force of her first decisive attack, unexpectedly aimed directly towards him, knocks him to his back. Before he can pull himself up, she’s at his side, katana raised.

“Thanks,” she says, and kills him with his own blade.

She doesn’t wonder what Kakashi would think of her now.

 

 

When Sasuke was younger, Kisame always thought she’d grow up deadly, and he was right. She could be a Daimyo’s daughter from her looks, or a geisha from the Iron Country, but she’s almost as dangerous as her brother was.

Though Konan considers the kid her legacy for those neat origami tricks, it’s these new lightning attacks where Sasuke really shines. He doesn’t know how, but she learns how to turn her chakra into pure electricity, nullifying the need for hand seals, and can use it as an extension of her body. The smell of it sticks to her more persistent than blood, and on a mission near Getsugakure, he watches her direct a rush of paper shuriken, charged with crackling blue with one hand, and send what looks like a genuine bolt of lighting from two raised fingers on the other. The chokuto he taught her to use stays sheathed against her back, her last line of defense, untouched.

Konan called Sasuke her legacy, Deidara referred to her as a work of art. Now she turns, half smile in her face surrounded by the dead, having killed the final two guards, and Kisame thinks she’s neither. This is Itachi, twisted into something else. As Kisame knew her brother better than anyone but her, he understands the strength of the genjutsu his old partner must’ve used. Sasuke is her brother, if someone had broken his mind. His eyes are a complimentary extra.

With a flick of her fingers, the paper shuriken straighten, blood sliding off easier than any adhesive, and landing back on her body. “There’s a village nearby,” she says, slipping her hands into her pockets and walking over. It’s not that she likes killing any more than Itachi did. She’s just too detached from the world around her to care. “Can we please stay in an actual inn tonight?”

As different as the girl is, he likes violence enough himself to enjoy the change. There’s no disapproval when he stabs a man in the back, and her more open attitude allows her to learn jutsu faster than before. “You’re not taking my extra pillow this time,” he says, and she forms a red flower with wasted chakra, twisting it like a clip into her hair.

She walks with a slight skip to her step, distracted as she searches the sky for birds. Kisame thinks Itachi never meant for his sister to turn into someone like this.

 

 

All Mangekyo Sharingan have their given abilities, but they can be trained to allow for more. Sasuke already has Itachi’s techniques as well as her own because of the implant. Obito isn’t surprised when the kunai he throws towards her disappears before it connects with her face, a simple fade with no dramatic lightning crack or puff of smoke. Though her right eye’s bleeding, she smiles brightly, and Obito knows he made the right choice.

When Madara left behind his legacy in death, he thought Obito could be the hope for the Uchiha clan, but he was already too far removed. Similarly, Itachi disgraced himself in the name of loyalty. Little Sasuke, though, with electricity sparking between her fingers and a face from a folktale, is Konoha’s biggest tragedy. She has the power to break the cycle through the Uzumaki boy of hers. She has the power to take Obito’s place if something in the oncoming war goes badly, and human mortality catches up to him.

At the end of training, she sits on her cloak, spread out on the grass, and sips at her water. The moonlight catches the blue of Itachi’s eyes. “I should get going,” she says, looking over to him. Over the past year, her accent’s changed to a mix between Konoha and Ame. “Kisame’s going to wonder where I am.”

Though only fourteen, she appears older, and fits the role of Akatsuki member much more comfortably than she did Konoha-nin. “The rest of them come and go as they please,” Obito says, crouching to her level. “Is it because you’re young, or just because you’re a girl?”

Her eyes narrow, and she doesn’t answer. “You talk to Pein sometimes, right?” she says instead. “Can you ask him something for me? Or, suggest it. I can’t do it myself.”

“Depends,” he answers. “What do you want?”

“I want to kill Orochimaru.”

There’s blood drying on her face, which doesn’t seem to bother her. “If you think you’re ready for it,” he says, and she stands, drawing the Akatsuki cloak around herself. Madara once said they were in an era of darkness. Sasuke might be young enough to be the dawn the world needs.

 

 

Today is the Winter Solstice, and Sasuke’s given a mission to capture the free-roaming Isobu for the Akatsuki. Most of her missions are with Kisame, but due to a complication with wanted posters, it’s Deidara who comes with her to the Frost Country.

He was an older brother to her when she was younger, but now their age gap makes him a friend. “They recognize the Akatsuki cloak here,” she says when she brings him out to the festival she told Kakashi of just a couple of years ago. Snow crunches beneath her boots, and in her white kimono, the only one she could afford on such short notice, she knows she must look like these children’s bedtime stories. “Walking through this village is the only way to get to Mugen no Yama, and Pein and Konan will kill you if you explode half the population.”

“But festivals are _boring_.”

“There’ll be fireworks.”

That quiets him, for now. She spends spare money on a pinwheel he doesn’t comment on, sticking in in her bun, and snowflakes coat their shoulders and hair. After a while, she asks, “Are we really going after all the Jinchuruki, Deidara-kun?”

Somewhere a few booth alleys down, a group of children laugh, sweet but shrill. Deidara’s honorific changed six months ago. “Yeah,” he says. “Is that a problem?”

By now, everyone knows her connection to Naruto, though she thinks she’s been successful in making it seem more shallow than it was. “No way,” she says, and her friend’s shoulders relax. “I just wanted to know how many seals I need to go into. It’s really not fun. That’s not even my psychical body, and the chakra still manages to hurt.”

He laughs so cruelly at her pain, and she doesn’t deny complaining for the sake of it. There are few better feelings in the world than the one of being useful. Here she is, treated with respect for what she can do, and given freedom she missed. It’s skewed without Itachi, the hole he left more tangible in Konoha, but at the same time easier. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the feeling of having the whole world at her disposal.

“Can we stay just a little longer before running off to travel up the mountain?” she says. “It’s not going anywhere. We can get something to eat, and walk around. I’ve been here before. It’s fun.”

If it were Kisame, he’d say no, and Team Seven would plead with her until Kakashi agreed. She wants to delay her trip to the mountain for more reasons than this; on a certain level, it feels wrong, going to Tengekyo no Kyuusho with someone else. The superstitions of the Frost Country aren’t here own, but the storm, worsened by the Isobu, still looks like a veil to the Spirit World thinning.

Deidara’s not Kisame, and he doesn’t need the begging of more than Sasuke. “Fine. But only ‘cause I’m hungry,” he says, and puts his hand on her back, pushing her in the direction of a bakery stand.

They huddle together to save their cotton cheese cake from the snow, and Sasuke feels a familiar prickle of chakra. “I want to see the ice sculptures, too,” she says, and wraps herself around Deidara’s arm. “Last thing. I promise.”

Though Konoha and the Akatsuki are enemies, she doesn’t have the heart to fight Kakashi. Instead she puts him out of her mind, and continues to pick at the cake as she walks, ignoring the groan of the wind blowing through the alleys like ghosts.

 

 

Gradually, something in Sasuke shifts. Konan doesn’t know if the others realize it, but women can see danger in a way men don’t.

She’s fallen asleep on the couch in the living area, surrounded by odd items, and unbothered by a couple arguing loudly beneath the window. Her shirt’s too big, as it was when she was young, falling off, and her leggings loose. The exhaustion on her face is visible even in sleep, and blood that must’ve been scrubbed off her cheek still on her palm. Even her chakra is low to the point of worrisome. Though Konan’s seen her obsessive about training before, it’s never been quite like this.

When she sits down on the edge of the couch, the girl doesn’t stir. After a moment of indecision, Konoha shakes her awake, and when she opens her eyes, they’re clouded by something darker than usual. “What’s wrong?” Sasuke says, and sits up. “Did I fall asleep?”

“Yes,” Konan answers, and glances to the objects on the floor. “I would’ve let you be, but you should clean the blood off yourself.”

Sasuke looks to her hand. Outside, the couple stops, and the rain continues on steadily. “Oh,” she says. “That.”

A tremor runs through her body when she goes to stand, so Konan puts her hand out, stopping her. “Wait here,” she says, and to her surprise, Sasuke does.

It takes ten minutes to find a wet cloth and return. She’s half-asleep again, hair falling down the edge of the couch, almost brushing against the perpetually dirty floor. Her eyes open when Konan resumes her earlier position, though, and sits studier than before. “What were you doing?” Konan asks, and scrubs Sasuke’s hand for her.

“I learned something new with the Mangekyo Sharingan,” she says. “It’s not as easy as Amaterasu or even Susanoo, but I can practice it inside.”

The last time she worked herself to exhaustion was when Konan taught her to turn her body to paper, but that never made her bleed. “You could take a break for a while,” she says. “Is there any reason behind training so hard?”

As it’s only noon, Sasuke must’ve been out of bed early to be exhausted to this point, and she’s liked sleeping in since she was a little girl. Even with the year and a half absence, Konan still knows Sasuke well enough to see when something’s bothering her. “No,” she says, folding her knees up and balancing her elbows. “It’s just fun being able to put things in a different dimension. I didn’t realize how much it took out of me, though.”

“Different dimension?”

“Kamui. It’s a Uchiha thing.”

Outside of the Sharingan’s perception and record ability, Sasuke doesn’t often use clan specific techniques, but rather an adapted form of Konan’s. “Don’t push yourself too hard,” she says, looking down to the bloody cloth. “You can’t go anywhere if you’re ill.”

Once she says it, Konan realizes what has her so anxious; Sasuke looks a bit too much like Itachi had, in the beginning. Tiredness wraps around her tighter than the Akatsuki cloak, and through that, there’s an air of agitation about her. She’s even the same age.

“I’m fine,” she says, but her smile is thin as she tries to prove it. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I figured out how to make paper birds the way you do butterflies.”

She lifts her hands, but Konan reaches out and takes them in hers. “You’re wanted for a mission in a while,” she says. “Go back to your nap.”

Sasuke nods, uncharacteristically distracted, and curls into herself on the couch. Konan waits until Sasuke’s asleep before picking her up, and carrying her to her room.

Underneath her shirt, Konan can feel her bones, birdlike and prominent, and hopes her suspicions are wrong.

 

 

Obito has a habit of doing things first, and then explaining later. It’s terrifying enough passing out from pain because he sent a piece of her side into Kamui without immediately sending it back. What’s worse is waking up, and discovering skin not hers replacing it.

“I don’t actually know if this going to work, but I thought it was worth the shot,” he says as she pulls up her shirt. Her body’s pale enough that it’s unnoticeable, but she knows the difference is there. In the end, that’s what matters. “Remember when I explained how the Rinnegan is formed? Well, it didn’t work on me, but—”

She isn’t thinking when she releases the Chidori needles, hoping at least one meets its mark. “What the fuck?” she says, standing. The room spins, colors blending, the sound of rain too loud, and her eyes shift naturally into the Mangekyo Sharingan. “I’ve had enough weird stuff done to me without my consent that you at least could’ve asked.”

When she agreed to work with him, she thought she knew what it entailed. Learning techniques other than what her Mangekyo Sharingan is equipped for is exhausting, and between that and the stress of knowing she’s going after Naruto one day, she’s driven herself to a state of near constant unwellness. Obito’s the last of her family, and she loves him for it, but he frightens her a little, too.

“If I had, you wouldn’t have agreed,” he says, and that’s the point she was trying to make. “You want to kill Orochimaru, don’t you? Itachi would’ve been able to do it at your age, but you need an extra advantage. If it works.”

He’s right, and she knows it, and that’s why she attacks. It’s a release of long building frustration. She would run and tell Konan, if she could, but she thinks Obito would kill them both.

The fight’s quick, and she lands on her stomach, arms twisted behind her back, and head pressed down to the floor. When she was dragged off to I&T after subduing Gaara, the ANBU member who took her away caught her in a similar hold. “You know, I do remember being fifteen,” he says as she struggles to breathe. The dust from the floor catches in her lungs. “It’s a bad age. Teenagers are irrational, I know that. You’ll understand I’m just trying to do what’s best for you, little cousin, when you’re older. Can I let you up now without you attacking me?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, you can.”

He lets go, and she scrambles to her feet, not wanting to risk being pinned down again. “It’s almost dinnertime,” he says, glancing out the window the large clock in view. In Ame, the endless rain makes it impossible to tell the time by the sun. “You should go back. It’s not good if you skip another meal.”

Without a word, she grabs the chokuto he knocked out of her hand up from the ground. “I’ll see you soon,” she says, and walks out into the rain.

 

 

After the loss of Sasori, Obito cements himself a position as an official member of the Akatsuki under the alias “Tobi.” Saving Sasuke doesn’t hurt his more immediate approval.

The entirety of the Akatsuki is in Amegakure for once, waiting for his cousin to wake. During the fight with Orochimaru, she nearly died, and according the medical-nin who treats her, it’s amazing she survived the poison she breathed in at all. When she does finally regain consciousness, it’s with a shudder, and then she opens her eyes.

In the time Obito’s known Pein, he’s never seen the man’s neutral expression break into shock. The rest aren’t much better. “That’s the Rinnegan,” Konan says. “Sasuke, how did you?”

Sasuke shuts her left eye, and brushes her hair over half her face, bowing her head. “Turns out it’s an evolved form of the Sharingan,” she says with a fleeting glance to Pein. “I was dying and then it happened. It used up all my chakra before I could figure out how to deactivate it.”

As muddled as her mind must be now, she doesn’t notice Obito sitting just out of eyesight, and he thinks that’s likely a good thing. Tobi is too precarious a cover to risk her anger. He’ll speak with her alone when he has the chance; he hadn’t expected the Senju DNA to work, and certainly hadn’t expected the Rinnegan to only appear in one eye. Lately Sasuke’s been as stormy as her lightning, and he doesn’t doubt she won’t see this as progress the way he does.

Very slowly, Pein reaches over and places a hand against the back of her neck. “It takes some time,” he says, “adjusting to that sort of power.”

She makes herself small, tucking her forehead into her knees and hiding her body with her hair, and no one tells her about Sasori.

 

 

Partnerships in the Akatsuki switch around often, and after Deidara nearly kills Tobi for saying his clay eagle looked more like a vulture, Pein places Tobi with Kisame and Sasuke with Deidara. This is also how she learns Sasori died.

When Deidara finally tracks her down, it’s nearing dark, and she’s lying on a branch, breathing hard with her hand on her stomach. All around her, trees are splintered and scarred, and the ground is covered by sheets of paper. “Wasn’t the timing just _perfect_?” she says without searching him out, and he jumps, catching the branch and pulling himself up. Her left eye’s uncovered by her hair, a reflection of Pein’s. “I’m the one who can subdue the Shukaku, I’ve done it before, and I might not know how my old team fights now, but I still know how they think. But no, I was off on a solo mission when that great opportunity came around. He’d still be alive if I was there.”

For as much as they argued, Deidara liked Sasori a lot. They understood each other on a certain level only artists do. He keeps going over it in his head, too, wondering if he could’ve taken out the Kyuubi Jinchuruki and his friends with a few explosions. “She’s the Jinchuruki’s teammate, right?”

“Yeah. And mine, technically.”

Inevitably, they’re going to cross paths again. Deidara prefers making death into an art, so he often distances himself, but he wouldn’t mind straggling the life from that girl just to feel her die. “You’ve already seen me explode one of your precious Konoha teams,” he says. “Want to help kill the second?”

She tenses, and for a moment, he thinks some loyalty to Konoha is still there even after this, and she’s going to argue. Then she jolts up, bent nearly in half, body shaking into a coughing fit, and the smell of blood hits him before he pushes her up. There’s red on her chin, spilling from her lips, and dripping to the tree branch. Her hand managed to find his forearm, squeezing so hard it’s painful, and when the attack finally stops, she stays silent, breathing deep.

Itachi did this, and then had her kill him a year and a half later.

“Don’t,” she says when Deidara opens his mouth. “Don’t say anything, and don’t tell anyone. They worry enough.”

With that, she stands, wiping her face with the back of her hand, and then her hand on a leaf. Her brother lasted a year and a half, but he was older, and stronger, and more annoyingly stubborn. He didn’t have a sudden kekkei genkai handicap. Deidara never thought of Itachi as something great, but he likes Sasuke.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” he says, and she shrugs before running away.

 

 

In their spare time, Nagato trains Sasuke in her Rinnegan, but it’s more difficult than teaching her how to read chakra. Mentally, physically, or both, she simply she cannot support the strain, despite her ability to deactivate it. The sight of it suits her well, though; few injuries she’s received have been severe enough to scar under a proper medical-nin’s attention, and her Sharingan can come and go. This is a permanence of her skill on a face so deceptively delicate.

As of now, the most she can do is transport herself instantaneously at a limited range, as well as access all the techniques of her Mangekyo Sharingan. She’s a true wielder of the Rinnegan, though, and Nagato knows that though it’ll take time, she’ll be able to do as much, if not more, than he can. He thinks, for a few weeks, that with an extra Rinnegan to capture Jinchuruki, and to extract the necessary chakra, the end to his goal had just gotten closer.

Then Konan comes to him, the usual calm in her eyes disrupted, and says, “She has Itachi’s illness.”

His hope shatters as quickly as it formed, and he sends for a medical-nin. It won’t be of any use, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try.

 

 

Though sick, the Rinnegan supposedly makes Sasuke the most useful in capturing Jinchuruki, and something in her broke during her battle with Orochimaru. Kisame, Deidara, Sasuke, and Obito accidentally meet in the Earth Country, and when alone, Obito’s not surprised his cousin attacks him.

It was a single Chidori, and he painfully thought of Rin, but angrily of Kakashi. He almost attacks back, but changes his mind, and catches her hand instead. “The Rinnegan’s not what did this to you,” he says bluntly as she allows it to fizzle out, and relaxes her body. The moon and stars shine above them, brighter and not obscured by clouds or trees. “Blame the major clans’ habits of marrying cousins.”

“How long?” she asks, not trying to pull away. A robin sings in rocky outcroppings, and Deidara, who watches her with a closer eye than even he realizes, won’t let her stray away from long. “Until we go after Naruto and his team?”

“Really, Sasuke-chan? After what they did to poor Sasori and everything?” Obito says. “Is it his murderer, or the Jinchuruki you’re confused about?”

Again, the attack isn’t a surprise, but the intent of it is, and with the devotion they put into her Sharingan, he’d forgotten the force of her other jutsu. If it weren’t for his ability to shift his body into Kamui, the electrified shuriken would’ve killed him. “You’re my cousin,” she says, poking him harmlessly in the chest, “and the last family I have. Some screwed up part of me loves you, but don’t think for a second I care about your bullshit issues with Kakashi over a girl. I’m not okay with you projecting yourself on me, because my team didn’t suffer from the same weird dynamic yours did. Understand?”

He’s still holding her hand, and if he wanted to, he could crush every bone in it by applying just the lightest pressure. Unfortunately, she’s right about one thing, and being the last survivors of a once powerful clan leaves messy emotional attachments. It’s not as though she means what she said, but it grates at him regardless.

That robin doesn’t give up its song, and Obito contemplates finding and killing it out of annoyance. “I actually have something for you,” he says, words biting. “If you swear never to talk like that again, I’ll give it to you.”

She watches him, blue eye calculating and Rinnegan unreadable, before saying, “Fine. I promise.”

As of now, Sasuke’s never been one to break a promise without third party interference, so he releases her, deciding to give her his rare trust. He removes the scroll found in Kusagakure from Kamui and hands it over, aware that she’s aware this is little more than a gift of pity. Itachi never had the affection for him that Sasuke does, even in her rapidly increasing outbursts, and he doesn’t appreciate the thought that going through with the plan will kill her prematurely now that the illness has taken hold.

When she reads over the scroll, the anger dissipates, and she returns to her usual self. “A Summoning? Seriously?” she says, and bounces like a child, throwing her arms around his neck. “Thank you! I’ve always wanted one.”

Itachi wanted to show her how to Summon ravens when she was old enough, and Obito is mildly surprised to find himself satisfied to be the one to show her instead. He sits with her on the hard, rocky ground, and talks her through it. After watching so many Summonings in her life, she probably doesn’t need the help, but allows it anyway.

Before putting her hand down to make her first Summon, she hesitates. “I’m really scared, Obito,” she says quietly, shoulders slouching. “I don’t want to die.”

Originally, he thought that if he died in battle, then she could take his place, and continue the plan. Now it’s more likely she’s going to die before him.

He says, “I know, Sasuke,” and she puts her hand against the contract.

 

 

Every other Jinchuruki was captured with relative ease, but the Gyuki was different. One moment, everything seemed to be going as normal. Then, somehow, he avoided an Amaterasu, and one of his tails connected squarely with Deidara’s back.

The crack and consequent strangled gasp aren’t sounds Sasuke’s going to forget any time soon.

She knows he’s dead without looking, like Shisui, her parents, Itachi, her first team, Sasori. Both Pein and Obito suggested her difficulty with the Rinnegan could be partially psychosomatic, similar to the problems she faced with Mangekyo Sharingan. They were right, she knows, because when she attempts to subdue the pain of the Jinchuruki’s chakra mid-rap about how she should give up now, she nearly rips the seal apart without outside help.

The effect of the partial break’s enough to land him on solid ground, only half-conscious, and the feeling was so frightening she decides she can never do it again. Deidara and Sasori are both gone because of this, and she may love Pein and Konan and even Obito, but this is it, she realizes. After the Gyuki is captured, the Akatsuki will turn their search to the Kyuubi, and despite her connection, she’ll be the one sent. She doesn’t have the level of cruelty it would take to do something like that to her friend, or maybe she’s just tired. A weariness has set itself deep into her bones because she knows the Infinite Tsukuyomi is a falsified peace, and she can’t let anymore people die to achieve it.

As she takes a seat by the Jinchuruki’s head, he looks up, but can’t move. “I hate you,” she says, tired with her lungs clogged, “but I’m leaving you here. I know how a Tailed-Beast’s chakra works. You’ll heal. Say you escaped on your own. If anyone finds out the Harbinger of the Akatsuki let her prey go, I’m dead. It doesn’t matter how persuasive I am.”

“Why?” he asks, words slurred against the ground.

She looks past him to Deidara, who was nineteen and genuinely enjoyed his life and didn’t need to die for this. Killing the Gyuki Jinchuruki would be proper retribution, the payment of one life for another, but there must be more Konoha left in her than she thought. “Because I just don’t care enough to kill you,” she answers, and stands.

Before she leaves, she kicks him hard in the stomach just because she can, and thinks he lets her.

 

 

When Sasuke returns on the back of her largest hawk, not with the Jinchuruki but Deidara’s corpse, Konan gathers the girl close. “His explosives barely worked,” Sasuke says into her shoulder. “A tail hit him, and I froze. I’m sorry.”

Loss is a keen thing. It can’t be explained, only felt. There’s blood on Sasuke’s shirt and arms, and none of it’s hers. A shinobi’s currency is blood, as the saying goes. Kunoichi, Konan’s always thought, are governed by it. The Akatsuki may have fallen disgracefully from a militia fighting so desperately for freedom to this sorry group of criminals dwindling by the day, but she cares for them regardless.

This fool’s errand searching for the Tailed-Beasts is what’s killing them, and she hates it. Sasuke’s next, whether by some Konoha-nin’s hand during the hunt for the Kyuubi, or the failings of her own body.

In Iwagakure, they burn their dead. Rather than use the traditional torch for the burial practice, Sasuke lights Deidara with Amaterasu. “These’ll burn for seven days and seven nights without my help,” she says. “There won’t be anything left for the birds.”

For all the disagreements on the purpose of art, Konan and Deidara understood each other’s creativity. When Sasuke sits by the fire to grieve, close enough to blister from the heat if she were anyone else, Konan takes a step back. Most shinobi and kunoichi live a life of victims’ blood, but for Sasuke and Deidara, theirs may have been ruled by fire instead.

There’s a darkness inside Sasuke deepening with each death, and Konan’s afraid of what it might lead to. Deidara once called the girl a work of moving art for the way she kills, but art is fragile. Young girls, even ones with the Rinnegan and Sharingan and lightning in their blood, are just as breakable.

Konan will follow Nagato to the end of the world and back if he asks, but the dead are increasing, and she worries all the same.

 

 

Sasuke’s health deteriorates much quicker than Itachi’s had, and Obito thinks there might be some truth to the idea the Rinnegan sped up the process. Between boring missions, and putting his plans for the Infinite Tsukuyomi to action, he spends what time with her he can in a gentler manner than before.

“The festival for the Konoha chuunin should be coming up soon,” she says one day, leaning her head against his shoulder. As frustrating as she is, she’s also nice to be around. He doesn’t need to wear the mask; she doesn’t cover her eye. It’s an unabashed acceptance of each other’s appearances only found in family. “There was never one for mine. Even if there had been, I wouldn’t have been allowed to go. I was in interrogation for three days.”

There are aspects of Konoha Obito misses other than Rin, if he’s honest with himself. Minato and Kushina were necessary sacrifices for a plan that ultimately failed, but sometimes Obito still aches at the thought of them. Kushina’s smile was always so warm, and Minato could make even the weakest shinobi feel proud of himself. Then there was the food, better than anywhere else, and the festival street performances. He thinks a lot about Classroom 10 in the Academy where he first met Rin, and how the walls are covered with the names of every student who stepped foot in there, written themselves after they learned to spell.

What Obito doesn’t miss is Konoha’s self-important belief that all their shinobi are kind as well as skilled. He hates Kakashi for what he did, but still wonders if he would’ve been cold hearted enough to stab his hand through his teammate if he hadn’t been made a gennin at five, then expected to act as though he were normal. They threw Itachi to ruination at thirteen because it was more convenient than handling a potential uprising themselves. Sasuke is just one victim in a long line of purposeful avoidance for the sake of pride. It’s why the Infinite Tsukuyomi is so necessary to achieve true peace. Wars won’t end as long as anger and hatred continue to fester, and those who wish to see each other dead send the naive to do their work for them.

On some days, Sasuke seems to understand this. On others, she doesn’t. Her failing health seems to be affecting her mood.

“Their opinions don’t matter, kid,” he says. “They never really did.”

She’s silent for a long moment before she says, “No, actually. They did matter. They mattered a lot.”

For the first time, he wonders what happened in there during those three days. It’s late, though, and she’s nearly asleep, so he saves the question for another day.

 

 

There’s a breaking point for everyone, and for Sasuke, it was discovering Pein was going to destroy Konoha. “I was raised here,” she says, staring up at the leader of Pein’s projections. Her back is to the Konoha-nin still alive, leaving her in the perfect position to kill, but nothing comes. “Of course I’m angry. Look around you! We’re standing on top of the Academy, a safe house for civilians during an invasion, and you just brought it down on their heads. Is this really how you want to build your peaceful world? On the backs of children’s corpses? Haven’t enough people died?”

Projecting vocals is much more difficult than projecting a conscious, she knows, which was how she knew he would wait for her to finish. “You’re young, Sasuke,” the imitation of Pein says, less condescending and more sad, “but you understand loss and suffering. Still, you grew up in a time called ‘relative peace.’ War’s an abstract concept to you. When it comes, you’ll understand this cause, too.”

“I might not understand war,” she says, “but I understand massacres. That’s all I’m seeing here. _Please_ , you’ve done enough damage. Don’t destroy the village any more than you have already. They don’t deserve it.”  When he doesn’t answer right away, she knows it’s to gather his words rather than real hesitation. Regardless, she squares her shoulders, breathes deep in resignation, and continues, “You and Konan are practically my parents. I’m not going to fight you. If you’re really going through with it, I’ll step aside, but I’m leaving the Akatsuki the moment you’re done.”

Before Pein can answer, two things happen at once: the frogs come in defense, and Obito comes for her.

From his angle, Naruto doesn’t notice her, and Pein attacks too quickly for her to try and act as peace keeper for the first time in her life. Despite giving her word not to, she instinctively goes to intervene, but Obito’s arms wrap around her first.

She twists, punching her cousin in the throat, and unfortunately for him, she knows his techniques. All of Kamui is connected, and when he tries to retreat, she calls him back, and the attack connects. He reels back, surprised, and this isn’t the first time she’s attacked him, but it’s certainly the first time she’s hurt him.

“I’m sorry,” she says, stepping away. “I just reacted, I didn’t mean—Obi—”

As the name begins to slip out, she knows she’s making a mistake, and hasn’t learned how to shift her own body into Kamui yet. When Obito gets his hand in her hair, another over her mouth, she panics, and runs a Chidori into his arm.

He throws her backwards with a single push of his hand into her chest, and she catches sight of Naruto pulling himself from the ground. Ignoring her cousin, she focuses her Rinnegan on a stray black rod on the ground, and transports herself to it, coming between her old teammate, and Pein. Her vision spins, the hit to the chest having damaged her badly already, but she holds her head high anyway.

“Stop fighting,” she says, unsure which one she’s begging not to die. “Please.”

Naruto says, “Sasuke,” in shock, and Pein says it in warning, but then she’s dissolving, and she’s on a block across from Obito, stuck in Kamui. In the moment before she’s in fully, though, she finds a discarded kunai in wreckage, and sends herself next to it. By the time Obito’s there, paper shuriken spin around her, her fans are comfortable in her hands, and she hasn’t been this reluctant to fight in years.  They attack in the same moment, her shuriken zipping through the air, and with one fan she sends a rush of lightning while with the other she redirects his weapons. When in Konoha the first time, she’d forgotten this style. She’s never been so thankful to have regained the skill.

Not everything connects, but some do, either through luck or her well trained ability to control Kamui. She takes his attacks the best she can, avoiding some by splitting into paper, deflecting others through wind and lightning and fire. Finally, he moves in close enough for her to take true offense, and she summons Susanoo, coating his sword with Amaterasu.

This is too much for her body to handle. First she collapses, Susanoo fading away, and then the world is dimming. She’s aware of the blood coming from her mouth without feeling it, a numbness spreading from her fingers to the rest of her body, but her hearing is free enough to hear Obito when he says, as panicked as she sounded, “No, not like this.”

She doesn’t know what happens when she finally slips from her knees to her side, but she knows she doesn’t like it. “Sasuke!” Naruto shouts, loud and high, and the last thing she feels is the familiar chakra of a Jinchuruki losing control.

 

 

Getting the information on Uchiha Obito’s survival and his plans for what Sasuke called the Infinite Tsukuyomi was easy. Getting her to say anything about herself is what’s hard.

It’s been a week since she woke, and Tsunade had the girl moved to the psychiatric ward with a chakra dampener on her wrist rather than restraints the first day. Her psychologist’s repeatedly failed to connect with her, perhaps because he’s not trying, and though Kakashi’s indirectly offered to speak with her, Tsunade decides to try herself at least once. She understands illness, and Sasuke has a hereditary one eating away at her, severely worsened by a blow she took to the chest during the fight. The disease isn’t incurable, though, if only she’d let herself be healed.

Knowing what’s going on inside her body makes seeing her all the more jarring. When she woke from her coma and first gave the information, she’d been bedridden for a week, coughing blood to puncture the conversation, with her hair unwashed. Now she’s had a shower, and is dressed in a pair of Sakura’s sweat pants from home and Naruto’s t-shirts, as the standard clothes were destroyed along with the original hospital, and she doesn’t appear sick. She’s small for her age rather than tall like last time, and even with her mismatched eyes, she’s almost unnaturally beautiful.

People are quick to trust a pretty face. Combine her appearance with her skill, and it’s no wonder her price in the Bingo Book is so high at fifteen.

Tsunade scrutinizes her a second too long, and even with both eyes deactivated, Sasuke notices. “I get compared to a doll a lot,” she says, folding her legs. “I was a straw doll in Konoha. Then I started getting compared to those silk-skinned ningyo ones. You know, that depict geisha? I’ve also been called a work of art, but that was more for my skill with lightning than anything else. It’s amazing how hung up on my looks people can get.”

In the years following the Third Shinobi War, morality began factor into how shinobi are trained more than those in this generation realize. Tsunade feels like she’s looking at a relic of the past; Sasuke’s the sort of kunoichi not found in the five great hidden villages anymore. “It’s insulting, but useful,” Tsunade says, seating herself across from the girl. “I used to be compared to a porcelain doll until I grew into this figure. Frustrating, isn’t it?”

Shrugging, Sasuke says, “It has it’s uses. It bothered me more when I was younger. In the Lightning Country, straw dolls are sacrificial. Burned as offerings to their storm deity at the spring equinox festival. I found the irony interesting.”

Maybe it’s not for the psychologist’s lack of trying, but because he’s male. This couldn’t be a conversation started with someone who didn’t understand. “There was a girl in my graduating class who was always jealous of me,” Tsunade says. “We were in kunoichi lessons together. She ‘accidentally’ broke one of the porcelain dolls that looked like me.”

To her surprise, Sasuke laughs. “People are ridiculous,” she says. “It says a lot about a person, how they try to hurt each other as kids. Girls knocking into other girls during fan practices, boys hitting each other in the yard. My parents always taught me to be nice to everyone, because that’s what girls do.”

Gender roles are more set in the shinobi life style than they are in the civilian world, and Tsunade understands this, too. “Always stand with your back straight,” she says. “Assert yourself, but not too much. You’ll scare away the boys.”

“Remember to smile, but not too often. Kunoichi know how to control their emotions.”

Of Sasuke’s generation, Hyuuga Hinata could probably recite all of these, too, and maybe Yamanaka Ino, but Sakura isn’t from a clan. Sasuke’s family, though, like Tsunade’s, were the most important in Konoha. Familial positions and attitudes factored in to a degree that maybe it isn’t a surprise she learned to use physical strength, and Sasuke lost herself.

With an almost thoughtful tone, she continues, “The rules never took, though. I grew too fast, so I was stuck in my brother’s clothes more often than not, and back then my hair refused to cooperate.” She pauses, then asks, “So, what’s going to happen to me?”

“There’re a few possible outcomes,” Tsunade says. “You’ll be executed if all this is found to be a trick. Possible imprisonment if your past actions are considered direct crimes against Konoha, but you did give valuable information without force. It also hasn’t been long, and you tried to save the village, so there’s a chance you can be assimilated back into Konoha society under probationary conditions until proven trustworthy. If you let someone heal you, you might even get a shot at becoming a kunoichi again. Right now you’re dying too fast for that to be an option.”

About half the village witnessed her halting Pein’s assault, and then the fight with the later identified Uchiha Obito afterwards. Probationary release is more likely than execution or imprisonment. “I’ll accept treatment if I get the third one,” Sasuke says, “but if I’m incarcerated, can you just kill me instead? I don’t feel like slowly dying in a prison.”

“Yes,” Tsunade says, because the girl has only a few months to live, and that’s no way to die. “Given what you did, it shouldn’t come to that, but don’t get your hopes up for everything to return to normal right away. Building up trust after leaving won’t be easy.”

“Wait, _leaving_?” Sasuke says. “At what point did I ever—isn’t that a little hypocritical, Hokage-sama?”

The title comes out dry, like a curse. Her psychologist did say her mood could change in a matter of seconds, but Tsunade hadn’t expected this. “That was a bad word choice,” she says, annoyed herself, but wanting to keep Sasuke calm. “After not returning.”

“I’m back now, aren’t I?”

Her body’s tense, eyes tracking every movement even without her Sharingan, and Tsunade thinks it’s good she’s the one handling this rather than the psychologist. Between the chakra dampener and the state of her lungs, Sasuke’s not very dangerous, but she could still do damage on someone with only low level training. “I know your team found you a while back,” Tsunade says, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms, “after you killed Orochimaru. If you wanted help, you could’ve asked then. What changed?”

Raising her eyebrow, Sasuke says, “Do you mean come back then so I could be protected, or because you want the Sharingan and Rinnegan under Konoha’s name?”

“This place is your home, Sasuke,” Tsunade says, realizing she might’ve just been found out what Uchiha Itachi told his sister to keep her away. “Protecting each other is part of the Konoha-nin code.”

From how tense she is, Sasuke clearly had a threshold for how much she could stand before she snapped, and when she says, “You’re right. Konoha _is_ my home,” Tsunade decides to let the girl get everything out. “But don’t say that like I owe it anything. Did Kakashi ever tell you about my eyes? That I used to be blind? Because that’s why Itachi took me with him. He knew I had a better shot at being able to learn how to adapt with the Akatsuki than in Konoha. Then Orochimaru marked me and Itachi got sick, so he _made_ me kill him so I could have these eyes, but it’s not like I asked for it.” Chakra dampeners aren’t perfect, and Sasuke’s normal eye flickers between blue, and the Mangekyo Sharingan. “I didn’t exactly ask to be paralyzed, and my eyes ripped out to implant his, either, but it’s not like my cousin’s cared when he fucked with my memory and sent me here only to break the genjutsu and take me back just to force the Sharingan to turn into the Rinnegan because _he_ needed it. I’ve spent _months_ keeping them away from Naruto and Konoha, so no, I didn’t leave when Kakashi found me, because you know what? The current bounty on my head matches what used to be the price the Akatsuki set to get me back just because they were worried. But I still came back because I knew what would happen if I didn’t, and it’s the first time I’ve ever had the chance to make a choice of my own on where I am, so I don’t care if you and everyone else doesn’t consider this immediate enough for standards. _I returned_.”

When she’s finally done, she looks away, failing to hide how close she is to tears, and her breathing is harsh. Letting her rant was good, as Tsunade expected, and lead to the information she needs. “Look,” she says, “I know last time you weren’t treated the way you should’ve been, especially given your age. Between all of Team Seven, I heard the full story. That’s not going to happen again.” She thinks that if it did, Sakura, Kakashi, and Naruto would join together and kill the interrogator. “You’re more than just the sum of what you can do. Even if you choose to remain a civilian, you won’t be any less of a Konoha citizen. Probationary means there’ll be rules, but you’ll get your agency.”

Sasuke looks back up, a fragile mix of hope and mistrust on her face, and Tsunade’s not going to allow the elders to make any decision other than to return the girl to Konoha society. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone deserves the chance to run their own lives. Giving Sasuke the opportunity might finally help in reversing years worth of captive bonding, a process she seems to have started on her own.

Besides, Tsunade thinks as Sasuke suddenly doubles over to cough, if it turns out she’s just an exceptionally good liar, it shouldn’t be that hard to kill her in a fight.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between here and tumblr, I have gotten a few ship requests (mostly gen, but I've gotten a few KakaSasu, SasuSaku, and one NejiSasu), so feel free to leave suggestions in the comments section. There's something I have planned that wouldn't necessarily require a ship, but would make it work a lot better. 
> 
> (fyi, for those making requests past Pein's Invasion, very little follows the canon plot)

**Author's Note:**

> Remember, for updates on both, you can find me on tumblr at
> 
>  
> 
> [feathersandfoxes.](http://feathersandfoxes.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [that kind of voyage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3568889) by [SunflowerSales](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunflowerSales/pseuds/SunflowerSales)




End file.
